Why it works: Sugar and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 20,806 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓
Vinegar
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Dissolve the sugar and treacle in the water in an earthenware vessel.
Lay the vinegar plant on top.
Cover with thick brown paper and secure it.
Ferment
Let it sit for six weeks or longer in cold weather until it turns to vinegar.
Strain and bottle
Strain the liquid, then boil it.
Strain again if necessary.
Bottle the vinegar.
Keep the mother
Place the fungus on more sugar, treacle, and water to keep it alive.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Explore the science
The flavor team
The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.
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Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together20,806 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Coarse brown sugar
- Provides the sugars that the culture converts, becoming the acid base of the vinegar.
- Treacle
- Adds further fermentable sugars and a deeper, molasses-like flavour to the finished vinegar.
- Vinegar plant (mother)
- Contains acetic acid bacteria that convert the alcohol in the liquid into acetic acid.
The step that matters
Let it sit for six weeks or longer. Acetic acid bacteria need time and air contact to turn the liquid into acetic acid. Cold weather slows them, so the liquid may need longer before it is sour enough to strain and bottle.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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